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COMMENTARY / World
Nov 16, 2006

Soothing the Aussie drought

SYDNEY -- Two old friends and customers, Japan and Australia, have come closer to putting the finishing touches to a historic deal that will firm up one of the world's most successful business partnerships.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 12, 2006

Sticking to the invective is less effective

NUCLEAR SHOWDOWN: North Korea Takes on the World, by Gordon C. Chang. Random House, 2006, 327 pp., $25.95 (cloth). Gordon Chang really can pick 'em. In 2001, as the world awakened to China's incandescent rise, he made a stir with "The Coming Collapse of China." Earlier this year he published "Nuclear...
EDITORIALS
Nov 12, 2006

'Very happy, super horse'

It was an Irish poet, W.B. Yeats, who definitively captured in words the magic that attends a great horse race. In his poem "At Galway Races" (1909) he wrote:
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Nov 10, 2006

DNA sleuths find the 'original Zin'

In August, the California state legislature passed a bill recognizing Zinfandel as the state's official "historical wine." This caused an immediate outcry among passionate Pinot fans, and sent waves of astonishment rippling through the upper echelons of Napa Valley's otherwise staid Cabernet dynasties....
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Nov 10, 2006

Politics at heart of two 'new' plays

American-born Australian and long-term Japan resident Roger Pulvers presents a double-bill of his plays in Japanese at Theater X in Tokyo's Sumida Ward from Nov. 15-18.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Nov 10, 2006

Hats off to expansion Grouses for road win in first game ever

Talk about a great start.
COMMENTARY
Nov 9, 2006

Engaging India to contain it

NEW DELHI -- Managed competition is likely to define the relationship between the two demographic titans, India and China, in the years ahead, even as they seek to expand bilateral cooperation.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 7, 2006

Pulling the wool

I s the world's second-largest economy, Japan feels it deserves the respect and privilege accorded the club of rich countries.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 4, 2006

Japan's future task: a balancing act on U.S., China ties

T he question of how to maintain balanced relations with China and the United States will be Japan's major diplomatic challenge in the coming decades, and the recent nuclear test by North Korea may in fact provide a good chance for Tokyo and Beijing to cement their ties.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 3, 2006

It's not about porn, it's all about art

Lucile Hadzihalilovic strides into a room and the mood immediately becomes dense with awe. It's not just her striking looks or her height (over 1.85 meters in stockings), but the way she seems to mute these things behind a natural quietness and engaging shyness, as if she's whispering: "Please don't...
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Oct 30, 2006

Will private equity boom in Japan? It did in Europe

After booming in the United States and Europe, private equity finally seems to have set its sights on Japan. Two of the world's top three private equity firms -- Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group -- have each opened offices in Japan or expanded their existing Japan operations over...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Oct 22, 2006

NHK's "Premium 10," Nihon TV's "Catherine the Great" and more

On Sept. 23, 35,000 people flocked to the Tsumagoi resort area in Shizuoka Prefecture to attend a concert featuring folk-rock singer Takuro Yoshida and the soft rock trio Kagu-yahime. In 1975 these two artists played for 12 hours at the same site in front of 50,000 fans at the first-ever concert of its...
EDITORIALS
Oct 20, 2006

Afghanistan at the tipping point

The top NATO military commander in Afghanistan, British Gen. David Richards, has warned that Afghanistan is at a crucial juncture. If the lives of ordinary Afghans do not improve soon, there is the very real danger that they will switch their allegiance back to the Taliban. Loss of the support of the...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2006

America's double standard fuels crises

LONDON -- The U.S. government's double standard in dealing with the intensifying nuclear crisis in North Korea further strengthens the argument that President George W. Bush's colonial designs are either exasperated by the vulnerability of his foes or deterred by their lethal preparedness.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 19, 2006

Shomei Tomatsu retrospective traces post-war experience

At age 15 in 1945, Shomei Tomatsu was working at an aircraft assembly plant in Nagoya. U.S. B-29s were bombing the industrial city so relentlessly that by the end of World War II, nine out of 10 of its buildings were destroyed -- compared with five out of 10 in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Oct 16, 2006

Expect more shocks from North Korea

LOS ANGELES -- Today's level of anxiety and near-panic in the U.S. news media is amazing. It is almost as if America's leading journalists are thrilled to be writing about something other than Iraq finally. Thank you, Kim Jong Il -- we were all getting rather bored.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 15, 2006

Article of faith draws ire at the highest level

I wish to report a miracle.
SUMO
Oct 14, 2006

Haircuts, sumo stars and amateurs in Osaka

Autumn is a time of change for the Japanese. Summer clothes are put away and sightings of thicker, woollier garments become increasingly common. The mercury encounters a daily struggle to stay first above 20 degrees then above 10, and the country collectively takes its foot off the pedal.
SOCCER
Oct 11, 2006

England boss McClaren too quick to dump 'captain fantastic' Becks

LONDON (AP) Bring back Beckham!
MORE SPORTS
Oct 9, 2006

Federer downs Henman to win Japan Open title

With friends like world No. 1 Roger Federer, who needs enemies?
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2006

Mustering the will to prevent calamity

LONDON -- It's a law of physics that translates well into the behavior of human beings: The greater the mass involved, the more effort is needed to overcome its inertia. But it doesn't read very well as an epitaph for civilization.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 7, 2006

Suzuki puts scare in Federer

With nothing to lose, Takao Suzuki played one of the games of his life. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't quite good enough against the world No. 1.
EDITORIALS
Oct 2, 2006

A few words about golf

What is it about golf? Such a silly game when you think about it -- traipsing thousands of meters cross-country to whack a tiny ball into teeny holes with a skinny stick. Whoever invented it -- probably the Scots -- had a diabolically twisted sense of fun. And yet, as we are constantly reminded, no other...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 1, 2006

Stars strive to be normal guys . . . and you buy it

During the 1980s bubble era it was almost obscene how much money Japanese companies overspent on things they didn't really need. In the media world, this extravagance was manifested in the hiring of foreign celebrities to appear in TV commercials.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past